See the Reserve activation over the top thread for some color on this analysis. I ran some numbers based on the text in the 7.03 manual. The table calculates the probability of failing all four checks (or three checks in the case of Army as first level of command). There is a little uncertainty about the range checks if the Army is the first level of command-I used the worst case. Bottom line is the unit reporting directly to the army has a greater chance of passing the initiative check than the unit reporting to a corps - all else being equal. For this I assumed that the initiative ratings and ranges are as shown in each table. For the table on the right,

If the army commander has an initiative level 1 higher than the corps commander, the the Army as first level command has a higher probability of passing the check.

I wanted to see the sensitivity of the initiative check on the initiative of the high commander (Halder is 6).

If your corps commander has a rating of 5, then even with a base of 8, you are better off without the corps in the leader check chain. At the current base of 10, the corps at level 5 increases the chance of all checks failing by 50% (from 16% to 25%) verses reporting directly to the the army.

But the Int roll is only half the story. The MP roll counts as well (as well hex range to target). But as it turns out the RAW are incorrect and there is no difference in MP penalties between Corp reporting to the same Army.

To be honest all that is needed is to knock down the Soviet leader ratings by a few points in 1941.

But the Int roll is only half the story. The MP roll counts as well (as well hex range to target). But as it turns out the RAW are incorrect and there is no difference in MP penalties between Corp reporting to the same Army.

To be honest all that is needed is to knock down the Soviet leader ratings by a few points in 1941.

Reserve activation is only part of the story. The bigger story is that for a whole range of morale, initiative and combat checks - the corps HQ hurts rather than helps unless the corps commander has the same rating as the army commander. If the corps commander rating is two below the army commander - it is horrible.

This, of course assumes the one incomplete example in the rules is correct.

I am. Another advantage to not using corps when the army is on a small front is you do not have to pay the absurd AP cost to move divisions around in an army. In this example, since I cannot disband LI corps due to withdrawing, I want to re-assign the division to the army. You will see that there is no AP cost benefit to re-assigning the division inside verses outside its current army.

That is a very good point. I find I spend lots of AP constantly switching XX between Corp to avoid the CV penalties. Army C&C avoids this problem to a large extent. I don't think a penalty between Corp reporting to the same Army is really warranted.

Army C&C avoids this problem to a large extent. I don't think a penalty between Corp reporting to the same Army is really warranted.

Are these penalties the same between German and Soviet? e.g. Does a German units, reporting to different Army HQ, under different Army Group HQ, suffer the same CV penalty as a Russian unit fighting under separate Fronts?

The CV penalties are the same for combat. However, the Soviets pay much lower AP costs to reassign units between HQs. I do not understand this difference because it is the Germans who have the more sophisticated staff organization. The cost for Axis allies is even higher.

Axis divisions are not commensurate with Soviet ones, hence the higher transfer cost. Save for a very brief period of time in 1941, Soviet divisions are roughly 2/3 as large and get a discount. (Some of their divisions are even smaller than that, like the cavalry divisions, which is a division by courtesy only. Most of us westerners would call it a brigade.) Soviets are not exactly swimming in APs generally anyways, they are far more constrained by APs as a practical matter due to many more demands on their AP budget.

Once the Soviets transition over to combat corps, they have it worse than the Axis does. Their transfer costs are steep.

It seems strange though that in the chaos of 1941 that the Soviets can throw a dozen XX in to an attack and if under the one Army suffer no CV penalty. Yet if the supposedly superior German C&C does the same they cannot avoid a penalty. It does not make sense. I would like to see no CV Penalty for German ONLY attacks that fall under one Army Command, even if several Corp are involved. It would seem from Pavel's remarks this is the case with Reserve Activations so why not for the attack itself.

The penalty ought to arise directly from the state of the leadership in this case, Michael. To some extent it does. Soviets fail leadership checks of all kinds with great frequency. Still, I am not satisfied with the game presentation of Soviet leadership. Too high initially, too static, and in some cases too low down the line.

Axis divisions are not commensurate with Soviet ones, hence the higher transfer cost.

Agree. I think the Soviet transfer cost caps out at 3? German ranges from 2-9 for divisions and division breakdowns. Soviet Corps run up to twice a large as German divisions and the cost seems to be 13-15 APs.

Of course, the Soviets get bucket loads of brigades that move around for 1.

Is creating extra support units something Axis players want to do? I don't think their replacement situation supports that. Most folks prefer to dial down those TOE as is. They eventually become disband bait.

It's true that the increase in costs between Soviet and Axis divisions are not linear. I'm not sure why that's the case. Possibly GG felt the Axis needed an AP sink here.

The thing is it should not even be a question. It should be an obvious observation that the German C&C system is better. I don't think it is. At best its marginal.

Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Give Pavel the data. If you want to convince him, that's the way to do it. I suspect this is one of those ideas that looks better on paper than in practice. Obviously Pavel isn't buying it. You may find it's not as amazing as you thought at least on the offense. But who knows, really?

No. It is still some particular case which shows that 7 is higher than 6.

I think it shows that if the corps leader initiative is lower then the army commanders initiative (which is likely) then the corps commander is, if you talk about committing reserves at least, redundant...

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"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.” ¯ Primo Levi, writer, holocaust survivor

ORIGINAL: Michael T The thing is it should not even be a question. It should be an obvious observation that the German C&C system is better.

Yes, this is precisely the point.At the moment I'm reasonably confident that you could swap over the Axis and Soviet C&C system and you would hardly notice the difference.There should be no question that this would quickly lead to disaster for the Germans. I know I've said it often enough, but if the poor performance of the Soviet leadership in 41 and 42 isn't hardwired into the game then what happened in those years is never going to make sense. Ideally the competence of the Soviet leadership, especially in 41 and 42, should be patchy and unpredictable which will mean occasional weaknesses which can be exploited as well as occasional fierce and potentially dangerous Soviet counterattacks.This will need a different and more transparent C&C mechanism than we have at the moment.

Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Need to be little more nuanced, particularly early on. The army command advantage works for 5 hexes. So outlying divisions still need a corps HQ. The approach I am taking is to delete one or two corps HQ in each infantry army in 1942.

The Germans desperately need more pioneer battalions. I would cheerfully knock 20 infantry divisions down to 75% at start and take the equivalent in pioneer battalions. As I have said elsewhere, the Soviets have great flexibility to tailor their force to the war that is being fought in WITE. The German force is rigidly restricted to that tailored to fight the historical campaign irrespective of what happens in WITE. Huge advantage to the Soviets.

The fact that I am a former Army engineer officer has absolutely no bearing on my opinion here. Honest.

No. It is still some particular case which shows that 7 is higher than 6.

What I am trying to say is that in the real world, 6 allocated over three or four divisions in a corps is more effective than 7 allocated over 10-12 divisions in an Army. The algorithm does not reflect this. So if we were to frame this as a requirements statement, we might have for the "Probability to Pass Leader Check" requirement:.

The game should reinforce traditional corps-army command structure by ensuring that in typical situations, the leader checks are more likely to pass when a corps is in the chain of checks then when one is not. The typical situation should be considered a corps commander with an effectiveness of 5 and an army commander with an effectiveness of 7.

Also remember that we are not talking about individuals. The admin rating in particular is probably more a reflection of the abilities of the chief of staff (and the overall experience of the HQ staff) than of the commander.

If one wanted to really get to the Soviet situation in 1941, newly formed HQs should start with really low admin ratings that build over time.

Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Need to be little more nuanced, particularly early on. The army command advantage works for 5 hexes. So outlying divisions still need a corps HQ. The approach I am taking is to delete one or two corps HQ in each infantry army in 1942.

Well, yes. That rather proves my point don't you think?

Corps commands are necessary on the offensive. If you to try to pull off any kind of major advance without them, your command net is going to suffer.

Only when things stabilize can you seriously contemplate doing away with them. This is really an optimization measure that the Axis can do once they are on the backfoot for good. If you smoke the Soviets early on (as Michael always does in his games) this is never going to come up.

I don't think the Germans need negative leadership DRMs. Officer quality stayed high throughout the war. At the tactical level Germans were dangerous all the way to the end and gave as good as they got or more. Dupuy did a huge study on this years ago.

As far as Hitler goes, I see that as something better handled by VPs. Fuhrer orders to hold objectives and the like. You can do the same with Stalin. This is a pretty complicated subject in of itself, It's not really a tactical issue imo or directly related to the combat system at any level.